Sara's Pins

Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Metallic Macgyver-- Sara's Crafty Tree

Mega-Crafty has made December 15th the great reveal for the Crafty Christmas Tree Challenge, so before I post my final tree I am going to show the other ornaments I've come up with! As I mentioned in my last post, I decided to go with a blue/purple/pink metallic theme.

It's appropriate then that the following ornaments are all made out of --metal (duh)

Glitter Screen Ornaments

Here are the supplies I started with:

Yes... that is a typical, run-of-the-mill splatter screen. Except it's also a very cheap splatter screen that I got at the Dollar Tree for $1. Also at DT, I got a bottle of chunky silver glitter nail polish for, $1. I Picked up the embroidery floss from Michaels at what I thought should have been 35cents a piece. But what to my wandering eyes should appear? Two of them rang up at $1.09... drats. A much larger hunk out of my budget than I had hoped. (No worries, when all is said and done I am way under budget!). Altogether, the embroidery floss cost me $2.53.

First, I began by weaving a piece of the floss in and out of the screens grid, in a straight line. This part is a pain in the butt very tedious as you'll want to make sure you are staying in the same row of screen openings. Going in and out of every other hole is just plain crazy talk, so skip over 4 here, 5 there--the number between each stitch is not important. I wanted mine to look random, so I just sewed in and out not even worrying about how many screen cells I was passing over; ain't no thing.

After I had made a complete line from one side of the screen to the other, I began with another color and repeated the same process. Again, I wanted my lines to be random, so I didn't make a set pattern and just picked and chose which color to use where. Just let the loose ends of the floss hang over the screen edges.

Next: Bedazzling!

I was worried that if I tried to cut shapes out of the screen, the floss would fray and unravel from the screen. That is where the glitter nail polish comes in! Over wax paper (so it doesn't make a mess or stick to the surface you are working on), shellack both sides of the screen with the glitter nail polish. I mean really let it have it...

I don't know how well you can see it here, but I promise that where there is thread- there is glitter, and lots of it. The polish helps to bind the floss to the screen and should help hold the screen together also once you start cutting.

Initially, I had wanted to repeat the striped segments multiple times, to be able to make more ornaments and extend my budget, but life happened and I ran out of patience, time, and the ability to see those tiny holes anymore. So when it came time to cut, I just poked the scissors through the screen and cut out the striped segment in one big piece.

BE CAREFUL!! As you cut the screen the edges become very sharp!

Next, I just took the rectangle and cut out circle shapes to create the ornaments!! The best part? The screen edges of the circles are jagged, and will almost velcro themselves onto the tree branch, so no hook or thread to hang them by is necessary!

﻿Position them in front of a light and it's pure magic people :) Just look at them sparkle!

Wire Spiral Ornaments

Here's another kind of metal ornament I made out of blue, pink and purple floral wire from the Dollar Tree; at a dollar a pack, these ornaments only cost me $3.

Lastly, I used 2 packs of cellophane tissue paper (in blue and pink--also DT finds) to create a large pom-pom tree topper and the simple kite tail garland on my tree (I used some of my extra pink floss here also)! $2

Welcome to a blog about four friends. Four gals who love wine and taking adventures together. We are all posting to help us stay connected with one anothers lives and to share with the blog-world our projects, opinions, and lives.